December 9, 2008 – US supermarkets have undertaken a clean-up operation against bacteria and other unwanted items that abound in grocery baskets.
To do this, they use a machine of the “car wash” type, in which the baskets scroll. Showered in a peroxide-based solution, they come out free, or almost (99%), of germs.
An exaggerated measure? It seems not, according to a study from the University of Arizona1. The grocery basket, which literally passes from hand to hand, would be one of the most contaminated everyday objects, according to an American study.
Researchers analyzed 30 grocery baskets that were in supermarket parking lots. According to their results, the baskets would present a number of bacteria and coliforms2 similar to the concentration found in public toilets.
The coliforms would come from several sources: the hands, the diapers of the babies which one sits in the basket, certain foods (such as the blood which drips from a wrapping of meat), without forgetting the feces of birds or other animals when the baskets are outside.
The researchers found no evidence of the bacteria E. coli or Staphylococcus aureus.
Claudia Morissette – HealthPassport.net
1. Maxwell, S, Gerba, CP, Microbial contamination of shopping carts, Department of soil, water and Environmental Science, University of Arizona, April 13, 2007.
2. Coliforms are a family of microbes found in the digestive tract and in feces.
